There is huge growth in a number of smart devices such as smartphones, tablets, smartwatches, wearables etc. in different parts of the world. These smart devices have at least one radio capability such as Bluetooth/WiFi, or cellular capability like the third generation (3G) based on universal mobile telecommunication systems/code division multiple access (UMTS/CDMA) or the 4th generation (4G) based on long term evolution (LTE)/WiMAX etc. With one or more radio capability equipped on such smart devices, the one or more radio capability equipped on such smart device are able to connect to the internet to gain access to multitude of applications like audio/video streaming, navigation maps, social networking applications, games and plethora of over the top (OTT) services/applications in addition to operator/service provider services. Further, from user perspective ownership of such smart device is not restricted to one type of smart device where a user owns a smartphone, a smartwatch, a tablet or simply a group of devices are always present in the vicinity of the user. When the user is on the move both the operator/service provider services and the OTT services are available on the smart device through the cellular radio interface unless the user is travelling in car/bus/train where he can connect to the wireless LAN (WLAN) access point (AP) to gain access to OTT services.
Similarly, typically when the user is in home environment or office environment or any public place equipped with WLAN AP then WiFi based radio capability is used for accessing the OTT services on the smart device. In such cases, the operator/service provider services like voice calls, SMS etc are delivered through the cellular capability on the smart device. However, the cellular radio of the smart device may be in dormant/idle mode when there is no active session ongoing on the cellular interface in order to save battery power. Most personal computing devices have proximity connectivity capability like Bluetooth/WiFi to pair/associate with another smart device like smartphone, tablet etc. Such dormant/idle mode power consumption can be further minimized based on the methods disclosed in the invention wherein the dormant/idle mode operations of a first smart device are offloaded to a second smart device through a proximity interface such as Bluetooth/WiFi. The second smart device having cellular radio capability acts as a proxy for the first smart device to carry out one or more dormant/idle mode functions on behalf of the first device in addition to similar functions for the second smart device.
The first smart device referred above is not restricted to smartphone or tablet but could also cover wearable device like smartwatch, health bands, smart glasses, smart necklaces, etc. The second smart device referred above is not restricted to smartphone or tablet but could also cover WLAN AP having cellular capability for backhaul, electronic consoles/dashboards inside cars/bus/train having WiFi capability for proximity connectivity and cellular capability for backhaul. Even though the invention is illustrated in detail referring to wearable kind of device as the first smart device and smartphone kind of device as the second smart device the scope of the invention is equally applicable for the various categories of the first smart device and second smart device as the aforementioned. The description of the invention referring to wearable kind of device as the first smart device and smartphone kind of device as the second smart device may not be considered as limiting case for the applicability of the invention. The proximity radio capability mentioned above based on Bluetooth and/or WiFi through which the first smart device and the second smart device are paired/associated may not be considered as restrictive for the applicability of the invention because the proximity interface may also be LTE based ProSe interface. However, for simplicity the invention is illustrated based on Bluetooth/WiFi proximity interface since these are dominant interfaces seen in the field worldwide.